of Chicago’s Ando Gallery. One, titled “Allegory of Balance #6,” was acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016; the other, titled
“Xuan,” a collection on loan, was exhibited with “Allegory of Balance
#6.”
“Allegory of Balance #6” is the Art Institute of Chicago’s first acquisition of contemporary Chinese ceramics and
contemporary Chinese sculpture.
It consists of three groupings of wheel-thrown, crystal-glazed porcelains and industrial, reflective stainless steel. The crystal glazes used in “Allegory of Balance #6” are Li’s creation and earned him the China National Invention Patents Award. “Xuan” is a collection of nine pieces crafted from porcelain and stainless steel. Li is recognized as one of China’s most accomplished and innovative ceramic artists, whose work has been shown in international exhibitions in China, Europe and the United States and is currently represented in several American museums. He holds a B.F.A. degree in sculpture (2005) from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China, and currently serves on the faculty at the College of Fine Arts at the Capital Normal University in Beijing.
Yasmin (Green) Mattox (B.A., political science) was featured in the Sept. 6 issue of Rochester Business Journal. RBJ profiled Mattox and her new startup business, Arkatecht, which provides digital professional advancement tools tailored to the needs of working parents.
2011
The late Nicholas Clark (B.A., environmental studies), who died in July 2018 while serving as a New York State trooper, was posthumously awarded a Certificate of Exceptional Valor by New York Governor AndrewCuomo. Nick, who was shot and killed in the line of duty on July 2, 2018, in Erwin, had been nominated for the New York State Police Officer of the Year Award. A star football player at Alfred, Nick was a two-time All-America and Empire 8 Conference Defensive Player of the Year honoree as well as a four-time Empire 8 all- star, two-time ECAC All-Region selection, and ECAC Merit Award winner. After graduation from Alfred University in 2011, Nick tried out for the Buffalo Bills before settling on a career in law enforcement. He graduated from the New York State Police Basic School in 2015. At the time of his death, he was stationed as a state trooper at the Bath barracks.
2014
Nurielle Stern (M.F.A., ceramic art), won the 2019 Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics. The $10,000 cash award, given by the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario, recognizes early-career ceramic artists in Canada. Nurielle was among several finalists from across Canada considered for the honor. The cash award is provided to allow early-career ceramic artists to undertake a period of independent research, or other activities to advance their artistic and professional practice. A group exhibition of work by Nurielle and the other Winifred Shantz Award finalists will be on view at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery through Nov. 17. As part of her project, Nurielle will produce large-scale ceramic sculptures, beginning with her participation in a residency at the California State University Long Beach Center for Contemporary Ceramics. Nurielle, who is based in Toronto, is a ceramic sculpture and installation artist. Her most recent exhibition,“Unswept Floor (Tesserae),” was commissioned by the Gardiner
Museum in Toronto, in response to “Ai Weiwei: Unbroken.”
Stern’s collaborative work with Nicholas Crombach, Whale Fall, is currently at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery and features an assemblage of furniture and ceramic components alluding to a decaying whale carcass.
Deaths
1943
Ailsa Johnstone Inglis, May 4, 20191949
Archie Farr, March 11, 2019 Ralph Jordan, April 21, 20191950
Joseph Markle, Dec. 24, 2004 Lavern Olson, Feb. 1, 2012 Roy VanAlsten, April 24, 2019 Lockhart Harder, May 16, 20191951
Dr. Richard Johnson, May 8, 2019 Robert Dungan, Aug. 1, 20191952
Joseph Piccirillo, March 17, 2019 Jerome Ackerman, March 30, 2019 Armand Beaudoin, June 28, 20191953
Rosemary Raymond Stoller, Feb.26, 2019
Joyce Dennison Simchick, Aug. 23, 2019
1954
Donald “Arnie” Armstrong, July 19, 20191955
Dr. Robert Carman, June 8, 20191956
Robert Kennedy, July 8, 20191957
Kevin Flemming, June 29, 20191958
Victor Babu, April 17, 2019 William Hoskyns, Jan. 11, 2019 Dr. Morris Kotick, June 13, 2019 Richard Bauer, June 17, 2019 Alice Bogaskie Louy, May 12, 20191959
George “Jed” Hoffner, May 15, 2016 Janice Ewell Post, April 21, 20191960
Judith Alsberg Fredericks, May 22, 2019Dr. William J. McDonough, April 14, 2018
1961
Lt. Col. C. Thomas Ferguson, Sept.10, 2015
Barbara O’Conner Hargrove-Yee, Aug. 25, 2019
1962
Maj. Arthur Wood, USAF (Ret.), Feb.25, 2019
Gerald Walker, Aug. 27, 2019
1963
Robert S. MacDonald, May 19, 2019 Joan F. Goodman, May 1, 2019 Ralph Schnell, June 23, 20191964
Paul A. Leipold, Sept. 3, 20191966
Mary Smyth Moore, March 30, 2019 Walter Peterson, April 27, 20191968
James Barrow, Aug. 17, 2019 John Lucadamo, April 14, 2019 Rebecca Barnum Tillotson, July 12,2019
1969
Rhondda Vazquez Little, April 6, 2019Andrew Mowrer, April 20, 2019 Hon. Andrew “Drew” Mullen, May
15, 2019
1970
Terry Mee, Aug. 5, 20191972
Dwight Kreuter, June 30, 20191977
Jane Mihalich, March 27, 20171980
Carol Anne Weaver, June 19, 20191981
William “Billy” Leverence, July 18, 20191983
Bruce Clark, Sept. 7, 20191984
Jon Kaufman, March 26, 2019 Charlene Domoracki Prior, July 11,2019
1985
Steven Murphy, Nov. 11, 20181989
Dr. Michael Joseph Renzi, July 25, 2019Glen Holt, March 19, 2019
1990
Marcus Stornelli, March 12, 2019 Laura VanHaelst Hogan, Aug. 22,2019
1997
Jarod Finlay, April 11, 2018 Tanya Babcock, June 1, 2019–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
William F. Holly ’51
William F. “Bill” Holly ’51 a former member of the Alfred University Board of Trustees, passed away Oct. 4, 2019, at age 90.
Bill earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Alfred University and was the owner of Sage, Rutty &
Company in Rochester. He served on the Alfred University Board of Trustees from 1980-97.
Bill is survived by his daughters Linda Nash (Mark), Susan Roy and his son Wayne Holly (Judy), 13 grandchildren, nine great grandchildren and special friend, Gail McCue. He is also survived by Audrey W. Holly, the mother of his children.
Jerome “Jerry” Ackerman Jerome “Jerry” Ackerman, ’52 M.F.A., a pioneer in mid-20th Century California Modernism, passed away March 30 at his home in Culver City, CA. He was 99.
Jerry and his wife, Evelyn, were renowned for their work in a variety of media – including ceramics, weaving, wood carving, and mosaics – in creating modernist decorative art. After Jerry earned his M.F.A. from Alfred University, the couple moved to California and started Jenev Design Studio in Los Angeles.
To honor her father, Laura Ackerman-Shaw has generously created The Jerome Ackerman Endowed Internship at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum. The internship will offer students in-depth exposure to Museum professional practices as well as insight into the creative processes.
It is designed to further each interns’ professional goals while helping the Museum address its multifaceted organizational goals.
Brian Dodge
Brian Dodge, director of Alfred University’s Physical Plant, passed away on Aug. 25, at age 58
following a battle with cancer.
Brian began his career at Alfred University in January 1999, when he was hired as a boiler tender.
He progressed through the ranks, becoming senior boiler tender and heating plant supervisor before his August 2011 promotion to director of the Physical Plant.
Survivors include his wife, Tammy, who works for AVI, Alfred University’s campus food service provider; brother, Kevin Dodge, facilities leader in the Alfred University Maintenance Department, and his mother, Chrystal Dodge.
W
hile the United States fares poorly in terms of global rankings of elementary and secondary school education, we lead the world at the post-secondary level.The fact that we attract more international post-secondary students than any other country evidences this. Currently, one out of four students globally who leave their own countries to study abroad come to the United States, more than double the number drawn by the second and third most popular destinations (11 percent go to the United Kingdom and 10 percent to China).
The two main reasons offered for American higher education excellence are competition, due to having so many institutions, and a large number of private schools.
With regard to the private sector, there are over 1,700 private (not-for-profit) colleges and universities in the United States, including Alfred University. These colleges and universities collectively account for one third of total undergraduate student enrollments. By contrast, private higher education elsewhere in the world is rare.
Are private universities drivers of educational quality?
Without question! According to the latest U.S. News and World Report annual ranking, 19 of the top 20 national universities are private.
Beyond competitiveness and the role played by private schools, David Epstein’s brilliant book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World suggests three other reasons why American higher education is so impressive. Specifically, our colleges and universities allow students to sample from a broader array of educational programs, make it easier for students to shift from one major to another, and offer much greater opportunity for interdisciplinary work.
The American approach to higher education pays huge dividends. Epstein reminds us that the 1989 Challenger disaster might have been prevented had engineers who had broad training in the sciences and humanities (and suspected that cold weather might threaten the mission’s success) not been ignored by those with narrower training.
He vividly describes how scientists with backgrounds in music and literature are more likely to make Nobel Prize-winning breakthroughs in fields like chemistry and economics.
And that helps to make my point.
In our colleges, we welcome “undecided” students while students in many other countries are required to choose a post-secondary academic specialization while they are still in high school. That is the very definition of educational rigidity.
Such rigidity hinders what economists call match quality—
the degree to which training is aligned with individuals’
abilities and passions. Imagine the analogous negative consequences associated with having to choose whom to marry based on your dating experiences in high school!
We are enhancing match quality at Alfred University with our Applied Experiential (APEX) learning program. It provides students financial grants in support of co-ops, internships, study-abroad, research, and service learning opportunities.
APEX promotes experimentation. It instills confidence. And it is generating demonstrable results.
There’s more. American colleges and universities allow students to change their academic major. This is much harder to do at many European and Asian schools that are a confederacy of faculties rather than fully integrated universities. Unfortunately, students in Shanghai or Berlin who begin an engineering program and later discover that they would prefer to study environmental science or business, are unable to make the change.
Finally, the ability to pursue multiple cross-disciplinary majors or minors is more limited outside of the United States.
That is why we excel in fields like behavioral economics, biomedical engineering, data analytics, and design thinking.
At Alfred University, students can combine work in fields as diverse as ceramic engineering, glass science, and our top 10 program in art and design. Such combinations would be next to impossible to pursue in Japan or France. In fact, we have long encouraged our students to be flexible in their studies and engage in the wide variety of academic programs we offer. We advise them to go not where their degree program says they should go but where their passions lead them, and then we support them fully.
We also require our new undergraduate students to take a unique one-unit course called Common Ground. It involves facilitated dialogue, in small-group settings, among students scrambled by gender, major, nationality, geography, and race.
Common Ground exposes students to different cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives and, as a result, broadens their viewpoints. It also seeks to identify the central values by which our students are willing to commit to living as citizens of our University community.
Universities are ideal settings for students to learn from each other and thereby hone their understanding and principles that will shape them for the remainder of their lives. America’s post-secondary schools are primed to outcompete our global counterparts by capitalizing on the rich range at the core of our DNA. It’s also the reason why America’s colleges and universities, such as Alfred University, will continue to lead the world in producing better prepared, balanced graduates.
Fiat Lux!
– Mark By Mark Zupan, President
Z
FROM TO AU Why American Higher Education Shines
33
APEX, Alfred University’s experiential learning program enjoyed a very successful first year, with $1,000 grants awarded to 187 juniors and seniors.
Under the leadership of new APEX Coordinator Krystal Cooper
’12, the University hopes to enjoy similar success in 2019-20. Early indications show the program is on track to meet or even exceed its goals.
“We were quite pleased with the number and quality of opportunities made possible for our students through last year’s APEX grants,” noted Amanda Baker, director of the Robert R.
McComsey Career Development Center, which oversees the APEX program.
APEX provides grants to
students to help them pursue a wide variety of co-op, internship, research, study-abroad, and service learning possibilities.
As of Sept. 23, 15 APEX grants had been awarded for 2019 fall semester projects. Baker noted there
are several pending applications being reviewed, and other proposals awaiting final approval from project supervisors.
She is confident this fall’s numbers will compare favorably to last fall, when 54 grants were awarded.
A total of 200 grants are available for 2019-20. Baker said some applications have been submitted for projects to be completed during the Allen Term (between the fall and spring semesters) and for the spring 2020 semester.
Cooper began her duties as APEX coordinator in July, succeeding Logan
Gee ’18, who served as the program’s first coordinator in 2018-19. Cooper, who worked for several years in the Athletics Department before taking over as APEX coordinator, enjoys being in a role that helps students pursue their goals.
“As an alumna, it’s heartwarming and encouraging to have this program available for juniors and seniors, at a time when students are finding what they’re passionate about,”
Cooper commented. “Having funding for these experiences can make a real difference in our students’ college careers.”
Cooper said one of her primary goals is to continue marketing the program on campus, making more students aware of the opportunity.
“We need to continue spreading the word. This is our second year, so we’ve been exploring new marketing tools,” said Cooper, who earned a bachelor’s degree in theater (dance minor) from Alfred University. Her husband, Jared, is a 2013 graduate (B.S., accounting), who went on to earn an MBA from Alfred University in 2014. He is currently assistant dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Word of mouth remains a significant vehicle for promoting APEX. “A lot of assistant deans are promoting APEX to faculty,”
who in turn encourage students to explore the program. Now that the program has a year under its belt, there are other marketing opportunities.
“We’d like to have panel discussions, bringing in students who have completed APEX experiences,” Cooper said. She hopes to organize the discussions for mid-semester, with an eye on boosting spring funding applications.
The benefits of an APEX experience go beyond funding – which grant recipients use to cover a variety of expenses ranging from transportation and housing to work clothing, equipment, and materials. Baker said students learn key skills like interviewing and resume- writing that will help them in their pursuit of careers. “It can help them get used to putting together and managing a budget. For most students, that’s a skill they will need in the future,” she noted.
Cooper credits the staff at the Career Development Center for helping her transition into her new role.
“It’s been enjoyable. It’s wonderful working with students, hearing about their ideas, and seeing how organized they are,” said Cooper. “It’s exciting. It’s a great challenge and opportunity.”
APEX program continues to grow
Krystal Cooper ’12, APEX Coordinator
“As an alumna, it’s heartwarming and encouraging to have this program available for juniors
and seniors, at a time when students are finding what
they’re passionate about”
Krystal Cooper ’12